More From Burgundy

    It's now Saturday, April 28, and we're in the Isere departement, after not having Internet access for several days, and I'll recap the past few days or so of our trip in segments.

    Last Monday morning, Ann, Giselle and I headed out to the town of Marcigny in Burgundy, which has a large outdoor weekly market. Unfortunately it was raining pretty heavily, so I wasn't able to get any good pictures, but we did spend a fair amount of time wandering through the market and the streets of the town. It was too early for lunch, so we decided to drive to the next town on our itinerary -- Semur-en-Brionnais -- and see what we could find there. Semur has a partly restored medieval chateau/fortress, and is also classified among the Plus Beaux Villages (Most Beautiful Villages) of France.

    When we arrived in Semur we parked near the chateau, and right across the street was a restaurant that was open for lunch. We spent a couple of hours having a leisurely, and good, lunch. A big surprise was the carafe of an unnamed white wine from the Maconnais that I ordered, which was incredibly inexpensive (about $10 for what would be 2/3 of  a bottle) and very good.  While we were having lunch, the rain stopped, and we went to visit the chateau after we finished lunch, and then took a stroll through the town, stopping to visit the impressive church and the priory.

   
      After leaving Semur, we drove to the nearby Chateau de Dree. We were too late for a visit of the interior, so we bought tickets for the gardens and toured the extensive grounds of the chateau.

     When we left Dree heading back towards Gueugon, we searched for Domaine d'Argolay, a goat cheese producer that I had found information about on a prior visit. Thanks to their excellent signage we were able to find them in their tiny village. We bought several of their goat cheeses, and then made a visit to the barn to see the goats, where I had the opportunity to help milk a couple of goats.

      The next day we made a day-long excursion to the heart of the Burgundy wine region, the Cote d'Or, with two of Ghislaine's longtime friends. One of them, Ghiselle, is related to a young winemaker in the Marsannay wine region north of Beaune.  But first we stopped in Ladoix to taste wine at Domaine Ravaut, which Ghiselle's husband was familiar with.  Their wines were outstanding, particularly their Premier Cru reds.

     We then headed off to Marsannay, where Ghiselle and her husband gave us a tour of the scattered vineyard parcels owned by Sylvain Pataille, the owner/winemaker of Domaine Sylvain Pataille.  Sylvain has developed a reputation as an outstanding young winemaker, and his wines are well-known among wine enthusiasts in New York and San Francisco, and a few other major American  cities.

      Before visiting the winery itself, we all had lunch at La Table du Rocher in Marsanny-la-Cote, an excellent old restaurant where we had a Marsannay rose from Le Chateau de Marsannay.  Ghiselle then drove us to the winery, where Sylvain's assistant, Simon, welcomed us into the cave and proceeded to open about 10 bottles of their red, white, and rose Marsannay wines. I thought we were done with trying their wines, but afterwards we all went next door, where Sylvain's parents live, and we sat outside for awhile before Sylvain arrived, followed by his young daughters coming home from school, his partner/wife, and other assorted family and friends. Sylvain then proceeded to open several more wines, including a rose sparkling wine (a pettaillent naturale, or "pet nat") that he was experimenting with. We spent about an hour there, and before we left Sylvain went and got 2 bottles of one of his red wines, which he gave to Ann and me as a gift.

Cellar at Domaine Sylvain Pataille

Ann and Sylvain

On Wednesday, our last day in Burgundy, I went out in the morning and walked to the center of Gueugnon again to pick up some croissants and bread for breakfast.  After breakfast, Ann and I drove to the nearby goat cheese producer, Mireille Naulin, to pick up some more goat cheese for the next part of the trip. We then drove back to Gueugnon, where Ghislaine was waiting to take us back to her parent’s house before we left Burgundy. Ghislaine’s father was in the middle of planting potatoes (he said that when the lilacs are in bloom, it’s time to plant potatoes), and he picked some parsley and rhubarb for us to take with us.  We then headed off to our next stop, the town of Le Bois d’Oingt in the southern Beaujolais.